Resilience: the economic risks of hurricane-related disruptions to port operations
31 March | Dr Srijith Balakrishnan of FRS will examine disruptions to ports, propose a framework to analyse the economic risks and apply this methodology to a case study of the Texas Port System.
Dr Srijith Balakrishnan of FRS, DREAMIN’ SG and the E2LCID project, will speak and take questions about the economic risks of hurricane-related disruptions to port operations on 31 March. His talk is part of the monthly TPM Resilience Ignite Talk series, organised by Delft University of Technology (TU Delft).
Abstract:
Among natural disasters, hurricanes pose a significant threat to port infrastructure in the United States, especially to those along the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. The operational continuity of ports is critical because of the growing reliance of domestic and international businesses on ports and their significance in the growth of national and regional economies. While direct physical damages to ports are not rare, a shutdown of port operations is more likely declared by authorities as a precautionary and preparatory measure during hurricanes.
Considering the enormous economic importance of ports and their vulnerability to hurricanes, the current research proposes a framework and methodology to analyze the economic risks of such hurricane-related shutdowns using hurricane- and port-related determinants. The risks of shutdowns are modelled using regression analysis based on historical port shutdown data and are combined with extensions of the well-known input-output model to predict the operational and economic risks posed by hurricanes to ports. The application of the methodology is demonstrated by conducting a case study based on the Texas Port System to evaluate the economic risks of hurricane-related port disruptions on the U.S. economy.
Talk Details:
Date:Thu, 31 March 2022
Time: 10-11pm (SGT), 4-5pm (CET)
Link: external pagehttps://tudelft.zoom.us/j/93743678763
Register here: external pageTPM Resilience Lab
About the speaker
Dr Srijith Balakrishnan is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Singapore-ETH Centre, Singapore, and a Resilience Fellow at the 4TU Federation, the Netherlands. He completed his doctoral research at the Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin in August 2020. His research primarily focuses on urban infrastructure modelling and analysis. He is interested in developing and applying generic- and infrastructure-specific frameworks, methods, and metrics to evaluate the risks and resilience of interdependent infrastructure systems. Previously, he has worked with several government agencies, such as the Texas Department of Transportation, on several transportation infrastructure management projects. Prior to joining UT Austin, he was a Research Engineer with the Engineering Systems and Design pillar at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore. He holds an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Kerala and a master's degree in Civil Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.
About TPM Resilience Lab
As part of the Technology, Policy, and Management Faculty of the TU Delft, the lab pioneers new resilience-based methods and tools that make use of the unique opportunities of novel technologies and data so that people can adapt to changing situations, and organiae their societies for the future. These ideas help to form the three thematic clusters around which the lab's work is organised.